It is better to forgive than to seethe. So goes the conventional wisdom, according to Dr. Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet of the Hope College psychology faculty. Her latest research project, recently awarded an external grant, just may prove it.

"Theorists, therapists and theologians alike have advanced the thesis that granting forgiveness is beneficial, and withholding forgiveness is detrimental for spiritual, psychological and physical health," said Witvliet, an assistant professor of psychology. "But there is little data." Witvliet's two-year project is "Embodied Forgiveness: Empirical Studies of Cognitive, Emotional and Physical Dimensions of Forgiveness-Related Responses." She has received the grant through an international research opportunity program for Scientific Studies on the Subject of Forgiveness." Witvliet's research is one of 29 awards recently announced by Dr. Everett Worthington, director of the program. Funding priority involved considerations of scientific merit along with pertinence to the criteria described in the request for proposals, according to the campaign's director, Dr. Everett Worthington. Broad areas of research funded through the program include projects on forgiveness and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, healing and reconciliation in Rwanda, marriage and family, end-of-life issues, a twin-family study, primate cultures and new models for measurement of forgiveness. The researchers are based at 28 different institutions, ranging from the University of Wales, Cardiff, to Stanford University, to the University of Michigan, to Princeton University. Witvliet will focus on four key responses to interpersonal violations: remembering the hurt, holding a grudge/plotting revenge against the perpetrator, developing empathy for the perpetrator and granting forgiveness. She expects each of the four to either erode or enhance physical, spiritual and mental health. She will study personal responses in a group of volunteer test subjects. The volunteers will be connected via electrodes to a computer that will monitor how they react physically to their memories and personal imagery of each forgiveness-related situation. She will compare facial muscle tension, sweat, heart rate and blood pressure during these conditions with other, more frequently studied emotions--happiness and anger, for example. She will look at what happens physically, on a second-by-second basis, as people mentally react to interpersonal hurts that happened to them in the past. Witvliet will conduct the physiological study with 60 Hope students during the forthcoming 1998-99 school year. During the second year, she'll work with 100 veterans through a post-traumatic stress disorder clinic. "The Hope study will inform us about the basic, immediate psychophysiological impact of forgiveness-related responses," she said. "The study of combat veterans will highlight how forgiveness-related responses are related to cognitive, emotional, spiritual and physical health." "How we respond to interpersonal hurts likely impacts health. If you're doing this month after month, year after year, what would be some of the health implications of that?," she said. For example, "If you're constantly focusing on the hurt and plotting revenge, cardiovascular problems, along with anger, anxiety and depression, might result."